Mega changes afoot for a mega industry

There is an unforeseen consequence — collateral damage, if you will — of the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 (officially FSMA, Public Law 353). It has created a major opportunity for the overhaul of all food production in the U.S. — by robots!

Since we all have to eat, it goes without saying that the food industry in the U.S. must be one of staggering proportions. According to Plunkett Research, U.S. consumers spend approximately $1.8 trillion annually on food, or nearly 10 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). In addition, 16.5 million people are employed in the food industry.

According to Glenn Hewson, Adept Technology’s senior vice president of marketing, the law’s effects are being felt across the entire food industry. He told reporters at the recent Pack Expo that food producers have to meet the Food Modernization Act’s safety sanitation requirements, or else.

Standards previously applicable only to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for meat have now been extended into every aspect of food production. “If I’m picking apples,” he said, “I’m under the same microscope as meat, poultry, and dairy.”

Just a matter of time

This law gives the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate how food is grown, harvested and processed. That covers just about everything save shopping and cooking. With their superior speed, productivity, accuracy, and cleanliness, robots have been presented with an ideal opportunity to take over.

Robots are entering the food industry in increasing numbers, and the pace of that entry is now picking up speed.

Manufacturers like KUKA, ABB, Yaskawa/ Motoman, Fanuc, and Adept Technologies each have food-production robot models and are vying for an ever-widening piece of the action. A mandate like the Food Modernization Act is the perfect incentive for them.

Fanuc robot handling lettuce

Strangely, a law enacted to protect the nation’s food supply may prohibit its citizens from producing their own food. Historically, that would be a first.

However, the advantages that robots bring to food production are undeniably far ahead of what humans could deliver. So, historic first or not, it’s the smart thing to do for the nation’s health, which, over time, will become the global standard.

In the not-too-distant future, more important to shoppers than “Sell by,” “Use by,” and “Best before” dates will be the label that affirms “Packed by robots.” We won’t buy without it.

Quick backstory

Many times, new industries come about because of the passage of a favorable law that drives the opportunity. Increased robot presence in food production was just such an occasion.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food-borne illnesses are on the rise. Every year, about 48 million people in the U.S., roughly one in six people, gets sick from eating contaminated food.

The main culprits are E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, Cyclosporiasis, and Vibrio. News of outbreaks of these diseases is a daily occurrence. People panic, food producers recall tons of goods, and billions of dollars are lost in the process.

With thousands of reported food-borne disease outbreaks annually, and in many cases going unreported, something clearly needed to be done.

In an effort to reduce such illnesses, federal regulators changed their stance from responding to contamination to preventing it. Hence, in the first major overhaul of the U.S. food regulation system since the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, Congress enacted the Food Safety Modernization Act.

The new law imposes a number of mandates on individuals and entities that manufacture, process, pack, transport, distribute, receive, or hold articles of food.

Although a U.S. law, its effect is also being felt abroad, particularly in Europe. Virtually, any country wanting to do business with the U.S. is affected.

Packed by food robots

In addition to the new law, consumers are looking for smaller more convenient packaging to meet their changing lifestyles. Producers themselves are looking for more flexible methods of packing mixed or multiple orders on the same line.

Since manual applications of food handling have a higher rate of error and chance of contamination, material handling robots are being brought in so that production lines can hold up to the new standards, regulations, lifestyles, and flexible packaging needs.

Not only do robots promote a more sterilized environment, they also take more precise counts during production, which leads to the ability to track a package that might be tainted back to its origins.

Food material handling robotic systems have a protection rating of IP 67, meaning that they are not only coated to withstand rusting and growth of bacteria, but they are also dust-proof.

These robots are versatile enough to perform several different material handling applications, including pick and place and packaging.

According to Food Logistics, along with standing up to regulations, food material handling robots speed up production. Some robots can pick 220 food items per minute.

The food material handling systems also raise safety levels by removing human workers from taxing, tedious, and sometimes injury-inducing jobs.

“There’s a lot more attention being paid to food safety,” confirmed Dick Motley, senior account manager for Fanuc Robotics. “You can get very accurate production counts out of a robot and understand exactly what it handled.”

“If a particular case of product is tainted, you have to trace it back to its origin,” said Bill Torrens, director of sales and marketing at RMT Robotics Ltd. [now Cimcorp Automation Ltd.]. “Not only in the building facility, but the original manufacturing machine that perhaps tainted the food.”

Robots are also built to operate in various harsh environments, such as extreme cold. A harsh environment for a human, or even absence of oxygen, is no problem for robots.

It is quite possible to create an environment that is hostile to humans and bacteria, but not to robots, which would make for an ideal environment to prevent rather than to respond to contamination, as federal regulators seek as a remedy to ever-increasing outbreaks of food-borne disease.

A future seems to be approaching in which the trusted gold standard for all packaged foods may well be the product label that boasts: Packed by robots.